Introspection
by hardly loquacious
Summary: Audrey reflects on how her life seems to work. Character study. Written mid-S3 (after Sarah).


Holiday Fic Request #5. For tanyareed. Happy birthday! The prompt was "Audrey introspection, possibly about her apparent immortality and how she feels knowing she was other people and that she will probably be other people again. Written after "Sarah," but before the next episode(s), so may not be 100% consistent with the show at the moment, but that's just how it goes.

Introspection

xxx

People always tell you, live every day like it's going to be your last, because you don't know when that's going to be true.

Except that she does.

She knows exactly when her last day is going to be, even if she doesn't know the hour.

Her last day in _this_ life at least.

The Hunter. It's coming for her. That's what people tell her at least.

But she also doesn't think it's going to be her last day. It'll be Audrey's, but not _hers._

She'll probably come back again as god only knows who. She has no idea what her name will be, or even who she'll be in her next incarnation (next life?).

She just knows that she's come and gone before. As Sarah, as Lucy, as who knows exactly how many other people. It could have been hundreds. The thought makes her a little queasy. Just how long has she been doing this? Appearing in the lives of the people of Haven every twenty years or so, before disappearing again?

How many people has she tried to help? How many people has she known? How many relationships has she had?

How many people has she hurt? Or worse, abandoned?

And how many times did she know it was coming?

She knows this time, because of people who knew another version of her. And she knows that sometimes someone told her former selves, or they figured it out for themselves.

At least some of them did.

She's pretty sure that Lucy knew her death was coming. After all, she wrote that message on the Colorado kid's coffin. If you don't know you're going to die (or disappear, or whatever), you don't bother writing a message to your future reincarnated self about something they have to do before _they_ die.

It's so confusing, the mess that is _her. _It makes Audrey want to put her head in her hands and just cry.

How does a person even begin to deal with this? How can anyone? People aren't designed to deal with this. Is she even really a person? Or is she several?

No wonder she's exhibiting what Claire calls avoidance behaviours.

(Audrey thinks Claire has some nerve to call her on them under the circumstances.)

And if Lucy knew what was going to happen, what about Sarah? Did Sarah know that she was going to disappear?

Audrey guesses that she probably did. She did give up her baby. Why would she have done that otherwise?

Most mothers who give up their babies have a good reason for it. The good mothers at least. And she'd like to think that she... Sarah... whoever, was a good enough mother to want the best for her son. She has to believe that her former selves weren't complete assholes. That they all have something in common, some kind of connection.

And she does feel a connection. Because she feels something strong for the Colorado kid now. Now that she knows he's... sort of, her son? What is he exactly?

God, this is going to be so screwed up for him.

If she finds him in time.

She wonders if he has any idea about any of this.

And she wonders if she can even trust what she feels? It feels like a memory, something she's found that she was repressing. But what if it's something she's just creating in her mind because she wants it to be there? Because she's scared? She'd ask Claire about _that_ possibility, but she doesn't want to. Doesn't want to hear the answer.

And while she wants to be like Sarah, she's not sure that she wants to _be_ Sarah. Doesn't like the idea that she hasn't changed over the years. That all of the people who came before have been _her,_ over and over and over again.

So much for every person being unique.

She almost wants to ask Vince, how much alike am I? To Lucy, to Sarah? He's known all three. He'd know if they were all identical.

Audrey knows that they had different memories. But those memories were probably all fake.

So not only she been hundreds of different people, but she has had hundreds of different sets of memories, has had hundreds of different jobs. What will she be next? A teacher, teaching troubled kids? Another cop, a different kind of cop? She could be almost anything.

And she won't have any control.

She won't have any control over her next life. She never does. At least she doesn't think she does.

If she does she doesn't remember it.

Those memories hadn't come back.

She wonders if her other selves were bothered by who they really were. She wonders if her future selves will be.

She wonders lots of things.

Like what was the point? If there even was a point.

Her life (_lives_) is all questions and no answers.

She came to help the troubled.

She wonders if any would ever be able to help her.

She hopes so.

xxx

The end


End file.
